Mind-full Minnesota Mom

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2010-12-28T08:21:00.001-06:00

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The Accidental Lactivist

2010-04-21T09:23:00.003-05:00

I have started a new job. I am my county's new WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor. A quick scroll through my little blog will reveal that I am a true believer in the benefits of breastfeeding. I've never thought of myself as a "lactivist" though. The issues are just too complicated, too personal, and at the same time too political for me to feel comfortable acting on my beliefs outside of my own home - or gingerly in my blog, and, once in awhile, Facebook page. Even this new job demands that I keep the issues on a very personal level. My role is about helping individual moms and their babies with their individual challenges. Period. No political agendas allowed - and I am comfortable with that. I do believe there is potential for a ripple effect that could impact moms and babies far beyond the few I will be privileged to know - but really even that is none of my business. I'm eager to work at normalizing breastfeeding within these strictly defined parameters - one mom and baby at a time.

And yet, you might have gotten the hint that I am a bit of a political animal. I love to wallow in the big picture. I get lost in it sometimes. So, bolstered by the recognition that I do have something to offer other breastfeeding moms that my new job has given me, I'm going to take my first tentative steps into lactivism by sharing the wise words of Dr. Jack Newman in his take on the breastfeeding wars. I do so still firmly within the context of building moms up and not knocking anyone down. Forgive me for not offering my own original insights, but he says it much better than I could (and I don't have time to reinvent the wheel anyway). The original can be found here, but I've supplied the full text below. Enjoy.

Breastfeeding and Guilt

by Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC.

One of the most powerful arguments many health professionals, government agencies and formula company manufacturers make for not promoting and supporting breastfeeding is that we should "not make the mother feel guilty for not breastfeeding". Even some strong breastfeeding advocates are disarmed by this "not making mothers feel guilty" ploy.

Because, indeed, it is nothing more than a ploy. It is an argument which deflects attention from the lack of knowledge and understanding of most health professionals about breastfeeding. This allows them not to feel guilty for their ignorance of how to help women overcome difficulties with breastfeeding, which could have been overcome and usually which could have been prevented in the first place if mothers were not so undermined in their attempts to breastfeed. This argument also seems to allow formula companies and health professionals to pass out formula company literature and free samples of formula to pregnant women and new mothers without pangs of guilt, though it has been well demonstrated that this literature and the free samples decrease the rate and duration of breastfeeding.

Let's look at real life. If a pregnant woman went to her physician and admitted she smoked a pack of cigarettes, is there not a strong chance that she would leave the office feeling guilty for endangering her developing baby? If she admitted to drinking a couple of beers every so often, is there not a strong chance that she would leave the office feeling guilty? If a mother admitted to sleeping in the same bed with her baby, would most physicians not make her feel guilty for this even though it is the best thing for her and the baby? If she went to the office with her one week old baby and told the physician that she was feeding her baby homogenized milk, what would be the reaction of her physician? Most would practically collapse and have a fit. And they would have no problem at all making that mother feel guilty for feeding her baby cow's milk, and then pressuring her to feed the baby formula. (Not pressuring her to breastfeed, it should be noted, because "you wouldn't want to make a woman feel guilty for not breastfeeding".)

Why such indulgence for formula? The reason of course, is that the formula companies have succeeded so brilliantly with their advertising to convince most of the world that formula feeding is just about as good as breastfeeding, and therefore there is no need to make such a big deal about women not breastfeeding. As a vice president of Nestle here in Toronto was quoted as saying "Obviously, advertising works". It is also a balm for the consciences of many health professionals who, themselves, did not breastfeed, or their wives did not breastfeed. "I will not make women feel guilty for not breastfeeding, because I don't want to feel guilty for my child not being breastfed".

Let's look at this a little more closely. Formula is certainly theoretically more appropriate for babies than cow's milk. But, in fact, there are no clinical studies which show that there is any difference between babies fed cow's milk and those fed formula. Not one. Breastmilk, and breastfeeding, which is not the same as breastmilk feeding, has many more theoretical advantages over formula than formula has over cow's milk (or other animal milk). And we are just learning about many of these advantages. Almost every day there are more studies telling us about these theoretical advantages. But there is also a wealth of clinical data showing that, even in affluent societies, breastfed babies, and their mothers incidentally, are much better off than formula fed babies. They have fewer ear infections, fewer gut infections, a lesser chance of developing juvenile diabetes and many other illnesses. The mother has a lesser chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer, and is probably protected against osteoporosis. And these are just a few examples.

So how should we approach support for breastfeeding? All pregnant women and their families need to know the risks of formula feeding. All should be encouraged to breastfeed, and all should get the best support available for starting breastfeeding once the baby is born. Because all the good intentions in the world will not help a mother who has developed terribly sore nipples because of the baby's poor latch at the breast. Or a mother who has been told, almost always inappropriately, that she must stop breastfeeding because of some medication or illness in her or her baby. Or a mother whose supply has not built up properly because she was given wrong information. Make no mistake about it—health professionals' advice is often the single most common reason for mothers' failing at breastfeeding!

If mothers get the information about the risks of formula feeding and decide to formula feed, they will have made an informed decision. This information must not come from the formula companies themselves, as it often does. Their pamphlets give some advantages of breastfeeding and then go on to imply that their formula is almost, actually just as good. If mothers get the best help possible with breastfeeding, and find breastfeeding is not for them, they will get no grief from me. It is important to know that a woman can easily switch from breastfeeding to bottle feeding. In the first days or weeks—no big problem. But the same is not true for switching from bottle feeding to breastfeeding. It is often very difficult or impossible, though not always.

Finally, who does feel guilty about breastfeeding? Not the women who make an informed choice to bottle feed. It is the woman who wanted to breastfeed, who tried, but was unable to breastfeed. In order to prevent women feeling guilty about not breastfeeding what is required is not avoiding promotion of breastfeeding, but promotion of breastfeeding coupled with good, knowledgeable and skillful support. This is not happening in most North American or European societies.

Written by Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC

This handout may be copied and distributed without further permission, on the condition that it is not used in any context in which the WHO code on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes is violated.

One of those days

2010-04-19T10:37:00.001-05:00

There are days when I feel drawn to him - to his physical presence - to all I have of him - to his grave. I often find myself wondering what would happen if I lay down on his grave and curled myself around his little marker stone. Would I feel closer to him? Would I feel connected to him in even a fraction of the way that I connect with Joni when I lie curled around her in our family bed and she finds my breast and nurses as she pleases? No, I don't think so. The ground is hard and cold. His marker is shiny cold and black. I want him to be there – somewhere where I can feel him - but he is not.

Sometimes my fantasies have me swallowed up by the earth at his grave - skipping the messiness of death, burial and decomposition and heading straight for elemental communion with my baby boy. This fantasy finds me on the days when my grief has been the hardest to face. On those days, being sucked alive into the earth feels like a completely appropriate, merciful and long overdue escape from the relentless saturation of my body and mind in missing him - but not really "missing" - "wanting him" is more like it. Of course I am needed here too much to let myself slip away, and so I don't let myself see where the fantasy would take me. But, the grief, and missing and wanting still remain.

Today is one of those days.

Hurt Feelings

2010-04-15T11:45:00.002-05:00

This has been simmering under my skin for quite some time now. I feel ridiculous at 40+ sounding like a 13 year old little girl, so my upper lip has been rigid, I let it go, slipping swiflty, effortlessly down my fowl-feathered back.....

Except that is a lie. It doesn't go away. It stays and eats at my confidence - ravenously.

Many babylost moms talk about the way they feel abandoned after their babies die. Family, but especially friends turn away from the raging grief, and so turn away from the person it is consuming as well. I don't think that is what I'm talking about here. I've worked too hard, and think I've been pretty darned successful at boxing up my grief , putting on a together face, carrying my sadness with grace, looking normal. "I'm good how are you?".... with a smile on top. No mention of my dead son, being poor, or making a slumlord rich - just the blessings of my wonderful husband and by beautiful living children :0)

I am really really sick to death of being ignored! I'm sick of "putting myself out there" only to be.......well what else can I call it but ignored? No response - nothing. Not "thanks for calling but I've been so busy". Not "thanks for your email but I don't need what you have to offer". Not "thanks but you are way too fucking depressing (or weird, or needy, or boring, etc.)". Just cold dead silence.

For months now I've been sucking it up and making excuses why I shouldn't take it personally. People are very busy these days after all. When I do bump into someone in person, they act as if they are happy to see me, right? So I guess they are just too overwhelmed to respond to my quick "just thinking of you" notes.

The reality is though, that after so many months of the same thing happening with so many different people, both in my real life and virtual worlds, babylost and not, that it really is time to take it personally. It has gotten to the point that I am wondering if I've developed some autism spectrum disorder that won't allow me to recognize my social misteps or gauge other's response to me. I'm serious. On top of that, well I'm not the most attractive person on the planet - that in itself makes one ignorable. And my politics must be oozing out of my pores, even as I am gagging on the blood of my bit tongue. Did I mention confidence chewed up and spat out?

Or maybe my phone isn't working right......and incoming emails have been inadvertantly blocked..... I'll go check.

....oh and.... screw spellcheck!

Other People's Blogs

2010-04-11T21:27:00.000-05:00

I haven't been around much. Well actually I have been, but I've been lurking on my own blog and reading and commenting on eveyone elses.

Reading other blogs gives me lots of ideas for things I would like to explore here, but I really struggle to find the time to put together a coherant exploration of a thought of more than a paragraph. Babies are a lot of work, and as I say at least once a day in exasperation - I can't have a thought of my own.

But commenting on other people's blogs - well that should only take a few sentences. That I can manage with one hand while I nurse the girl. And so that is what I've been doing. It keeps me thinking and writing, but it does have limitations. But I can't go there now......

......why the heck doesn't this thing have a spell check?

Chet Wants a Big Quarter!!!!

2010-03-14T10:41:00.002-05:00

I love my little man very much. Sometimes he has a one track mind. Right now his track is stuck on quarters. He wants them in the worst way. To Chet, quarters equal gumballs! Chet likes gumballs more than he likes quarters. He will happily trade a quarter for a gumball. He will trade anything for a quarter.

Today he really wanted to Save the World! He needed his sister's red crystal hairpin to do it. She bought it at a rummage sale last summer for a quarter. As much as he wanted to save the world and as much as he needed the red crystal hairpin to do it, he just couldn't see himself clear to give up the quarter he had to buy the world saving hairpin from his sister. "But I need this quarter for a gumball" he wailed.

After much explaining on my part about equity, fairness and reciprocity, Chet came up with an answer to the problem on his own. He ran to the kitchen, pulled a chair up to the counter, and found Daddy's change bowl. In a spirit of generosity, he fished out two quarters, and used them to pay his sister. With the red crystal hairpin in hand, he ran into the living room, and was back within seconds, declaring the world officially saved.

This is typical of wealth redistribution in our house. Chet has no qualms about helping himself, and it eventually filters down to Grace. Sometimes she is patient about the process, other times - not so much. The rule at our house is any change found on the floor is free for all - finders keepers. Any change I find on the floor I put in Joni's piggy bank. Grace and Chet put their found wealth in their own special hiding places. Chet uses his sock drawer and Grace has a re-purposed sour cream container.

Grace knows enough to realize that quarters are best, but pennies, dimes and nickels will do the trick in sufficient quantity. Chet, as he just rambled in to explain, only likes quarters. They equal gumballs. No matter how many dimes and nickels he has, they can't get him a gumball out of the machine at the grocery store. So there you have it - the economics of toddlerhood.

Now, one way to solve the obvious problems with our household economy would be to give the children allowances. Then Grace wouldn’t have to rely on Chet’s thievery to get money, and Chet could have the pleasure of buying his gumballs with his own carefully saved quarters. Ok – honestly Chet thinks procession is nine tenths of the law. The quarters he has, no matter how acquired, are his because he has them. So I think the lessons an allowance would teach might be lost on him, and it certainly wouldn’t be as fun for him as hunting and gathering is. But Grace would LOVE it, and some of her excitement will certainly rub off on Chet.

To be honest, Grace having become big enough for an allowance sort of snuck up on me. She is nearly NINE now!! When did that happen? Of course she wants to buy things. And she needs to learn how money works for sure. For most of the last three or four years we have been too broke to offer an allowance. In fact any birthday or Christmas money that came her way inevitably ended up buying groceries or gas – sad but true. I don’t feel too bad about it though. I’m the old fashioned type that believes children should contribute in any way they can to their family. If that means sharing birthday money – so be it. (More on that later.)

Chet just came in and asked me to print a quarter out. Quarters are minted I explained. “Oh Mom, you got a printer, just print a quarter out.” Seems I have a lot of money training to do.

What did I lose?

2010-03-12T21:53:00.002-06:00

Glow in the Woods is my favorite babylost blog. In the open forum called "for one and all" a post-er brought up the issue of collateral losses - the things that slip away from us when our babies die. In this instance, the discussion centered on those things that we've lost that we wish we hadn't. There are many things that appropriately take a back burner in the face of such grief - priorities realigned. But those things aren't what this discussion is about. I responded with the following post. I have been thinking about this issue for such a long time, and I was happy for the opportunity to frame it in this way.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I lost birth. I know that sounds trivial but birth was important to me before Noah died (stillborn at term due to a cord knot). I had trained as a doula and birthed my second baby at home. I was engaged, on the periphery at least, with the women – doulas, midwives, body workers, etc - who make up the birth community in our small city. I was (am I guess) one of those lucky women who believed in natural birth, was able to have it, and felt empowered by it. I have never had a great relationship with my over-sized body – but giving birth….it just made me so proud – so amazed at what MY body could do.

Noah’s was a planned hospital birth because our insurance would cover it 100% and would not cover a home-birth at all and we just did not have the money. However I went to great lengths to find a doctor and hospital that would support my desire to birth naturally. When we discovered at a regular appointment that Noah had died and I would need to be induced, I wanted an epidural for his delivery. In the end I didn’t need it. He left my body almost painlessly without the meds I thought I’d need.

My husband and I were blessed to receive another life just three months after Noah left us. I struggled the entire pregnancy to reconcile what I wanted to believe about birth with my new-found unwanted knowledge that babies sometimes die before they are born – that my body wasn’t the safe place for my babies that I thought it was. I didn’t want fear to win. I looked for mentors – babylost women who still trusted their bodies and birth. That is how I found “Glow”. I hoped I could find someone who could help me see a way to embrace, even revel in pregnancy and birth as I had before, but I never did.

I had every intention of having a stare down with Death in my pregnancy after Noah’s, but instead I scurried around hiding behind rocks, under beds and in closets, trying to keep the Grim Reaper from finding the daughter I carried. It didn’t help that her pregnancy was the most medically complicated of my four to make it out of the first trimester. On top of that I was 40. Forty, babylost and lots of bumps in the road to delivery day – NOT a good combination to inspire strong prenatal mental health.

In the end I delivered our daughter in the same hospital where I delivered Noah, under the care of the same family practice doctor. I was induced at 37w4d because Joni repeatedly failed her bio-physical profiles. My doula/midwife could not be there, but she sent her back-up and she was lovely. I birthed as naturally as one could while dragging around an iv pole and hooked to machines. It was an honest day’s work, but it was not the triumphant, healing experience I had hoped for. Our daughter – skinny but healthy, strong, gorgeous and simply amazing – has tempered my ache for her brother. But her birth did not heal the hole left in my heart when birth and death renewed their acquaintance in my womb.

I have been around here long enough to know that this particular brand of crazy talk really irritates some. I hope I’ve conveyed the distinction that I make in my mind between the baby and the birth. I would have done ANYTHING to get my babies here alive. I believed pregnancy and birth with minimal medical interventions was the best way to do it. Beyond that, the acts of growing a life inside of me and delivering her safely into the world are about my relationship with my body and my own sense of power – a perk separate from the real prize, but important to me none the less.

Now, almost 19 months since Noah was born, and 8 months since Joni arrived, I have little contact with my birth community acquaintances. I went to a natural birth and baby expo last night, under the pretext of buying a new sling, but really so I could show off Joni. I saw many people I hadn’t seen since Noah’s funeral. There were smiles, congratulations, warm hugs. It wasn’t the place to touch on hidden grief, but I could tell just by looking in eyes who realized it was still there and avoided it, and who assumed it had been replaced by the babe in my arms. If they only knew how I grieve still - for my son and for the shared faith that used to make me part of their sisterhood.

International Women's Day

2010-03-09T08:37:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was International Women's Day. Some of my favorite blogs marked the day with commentary. I marked it by changing my Face Book profile picture to one of a painting of a beautiful strong woman nursing her baby. I have been reading lots of blog commentary on the baby feeding wars. It makes me sad. I'll write about that more later. For now I'll just share some images that I find beautiful.

Pablo Picasso

Artist unknown to me. It is my current FB profile image. If you know the artist, please let me know.

Fiery Breastfeeding, Artist Unknown, alisaterry.blogspot.com

Mother and Child, Renoir

Yashoda Breastfeeding, Mysore Traditional Art Krishna

Madonna and Child, Leonardo da Vinci

The Divine Mother (closeup), Michelle Levy

Tender Hands, Diana Moses Botkin

Young Mother Feeding Her Baby, Lepicier

Mother Jeanne Nursing Her Baby, Mary Cassatt

Joninah Louise, Seven Months

Long winded

2010-03-08T09:30:00.000-06:00

In the last three weeks my beloved has spent nearly $500 and at least 4 precious work days trying to get a snowmobile going so he can get around in the woods to finish the acres necessary to meet his deadline.......and the snow will be gone by the end of the week. So it will cost a few more hundred, and more worth-their-weight-in-gold work days (ok not really gold - they are just really really precious), to get the three wheeler going - which will almost certainly leave him stranded in the woods anyway........ :*0(

I tried to post this as my status on FaceBook this morning. It was error-ed out - too many characters. That is why I have this blog that no one reads - because I just can't say things in a quick blurb of a few words. My FB posts are often like this - too long. And too grumpy.

In my FB world - everybody is happy. Unless someone has died, and then condolences are quickly offered, and everyone goes back to happy. Even if they are unhappy, and they dare to post about it, they try very hard to make light of their unhappiness. I did. Notice the "emoticon" at the end? Silly little thing, right? Well actually I am on the verge of tears.

Less than $1000 spent on necessary business equipment doesn't seem like much, but for us, it is. And I can not even begin to explain the cost of missing all these days of work. It is unseemly to talk about money and angst in public - but man I think I am reaching the end of my rope.

Ok, not really. All things in my life are now sifted through the filter of babyloss. So I get angry sometimes, and frustrated, and I often feel overwhelmed. But for me, burying Noah was the end of my rope. Anxiously wondering if the money to keep our heads above water - the money sitting there waiting to be earned - will find its way into our checking account...... well that is definitely middle of the rope stuff. It's all relative.

Human Mother

2010-03-06T23:51:00.001-06:00

My son died and I have been transformed by the experience. I am better and worse for having carried our son, to have been the source of his life, to have given birth to death. I love my children more. It is difficult to imagine the mother-love that is intensified by death - but it is. Ordinary mother-love is more than enough to nurture a child. Baby-lost mother-love is the ordinary variety on crack. I'm not saying that's all good, and certainly not worth the cost to find. And yet I know now that I didn't really know the depth of my love for my children before Noah died.

And as I mentioned before, I feel shell-shocked. I don't feel like life is as safe as I did before. I feel less capable of protecting my children. I don't feel that our hard work and the force of our convictions can always keep us afloat or safe. I feel the pull of forces completely out of my control, conspiring with my own exhaustion to drag me under. Perpetually treading water, waiting for the sharks...... Of course Noah’s death was only one of the bombs that found our family.

So I am different, but I am still a human mother. I love my children beyond reason. My mind sees in technicolor what intuition only hinted at before - that I would give my life in a second for all three of my living children. I would do it gladly if asked. But I am still a human mother and my kids bug me sometimes. They dump toys and refuse to pick them up. They fight with each other. They scream and have tantrums sometimes. They tell fibs and help themselves to quarters out of my wallet that I've told them 20 times to leave alone. Potty training has taken well over a year. And I'm tired. So sometimes I feel frustrated. Sometimes - perhaps even most of the time - I feel overwhelmed. And sometimes I raise my voice. And sometimes I complain about the beloved children I would die for.

Losing a child has trasformed me - but not into a saint. I am still a human mother.

Happy Anniversary!

2010-02-27T10:25:00.001-06:00

Today I've been married to my dear sweet loving husband for five years. If I am generous I would say we have known each other for five years, six months, but honesty forces me to admit it has been a bit less than that. Yet I can't imagine finding a better mate if I spent ten years getting to know him. Not perfect on all counts - but the perfect compliment for my own too numerous imperfections. We were meant for each other I believe - meant to be together.

We've managed to pack a lot into our five years together. Seven pregnancies, a thriving business lost, four addresses in three different towns, three schools, foreclosure, a glimpse at homelessness...... yes there is more. We have been stripped clean in many senses - extras left behind to make room for the good stuff - better stuff. We've clung ferociously, even obstinately to our values, scarifying much in their name. I often wonder if we are right.

Lots of good things have happened to us in five years, but I would be Polly Anna's perkier baby-sister if I denied the bad stuff. Or if I lied and said I am better for having experienced it all. Parts of me are better - but it's not "all good" my any means. I feel shell shocked sometimes. A true survivor of war would certainly balk at my cooptation of the term “shell shock”, just as I balk when people compare the deaths of their cats the deaths of my babies. But I don't begrudge them lest I be begrudged.

Someone who should have known better than to be so unkind recently asked me why I “let” some of the particularly difficult things we have struggled through happen to our family. What a luxury to have never tripped on pebble that catapults you into a shit hole. We are an intelligent, educated, and hard-working pair, and it happened to us. I dare say it could happen to anyone. That is why I want to tell our story - it is as American as any Horatio Alger tale - and it happened to us.

Noah is calling

2010-02-17T00:24:00.001-06:00

Noah has been asking for my attention rather insistantly the last few days. Things I haven't thought of in many weeks pop into my mind - randomly. His birth. Waiting for the contractions. My doctor. No heartbeat. My cluelessness. Being alone. Wailing in me sweet gentle husband's arms. The seering grief. And the guilt.

There are so many things I want to say about our life as a family while I carried Noah. It isn't a pretty story. It ends in such a vicious irony that my mind still reels at the thought of it. How could this have happened in real life? Even the schmaltziest melodramatist would have dared pitch this script - and he likely would have been laughed out of the meeting. But it did happen to us - to me - to Noah.

We got a camera fo Christmas!

2010-02-16T09:59:00.001-06:00

Baby Dreams

2009-10-04T10:09:00.000-05:00

(I haven't posted about my dreams during Noah's and Joni's pregnancies. I wrote this in response to a discussion topic in a support group I belong to.)

When I was pregnant with Noah, I had a dream he had died just a couple of weeks before it was so. I couldn't remember the details but I told my husband about it and asked him if we could try again if something happened to Noah. (Noah had been very unplanned and we had been in desperate financial straights - so we really had no business having another baby). He said "of course but nothing is going to happen to him."

Around the same time I was at a rummage sale and struck up a conversation with another very pregnant mom and we discussed due dates. I said "we're having a boy and he's due September 13th - but he's not going to make it." I checked myself immediately. What I meant was he wasn't going to make it to his due date because he was so big and I was having so many contractions - unlike anything I had experienced with my other two full term pregnancies. In the end both my slip and my feeling that he was a big baby and would come early were both true. He arrived at 37 weeks, big, healthy, but still.

On the day of his funeral we had family over to our apartment, an apartment we moved into only 4 weeks before Noah died. When they left, I walked into the kitchen and looked at the remains of the gathering on the counter - a half empty ginger ale bottle, a bakery box filled with bars from the funeral lunch, paper plates, plastic cups - and I deja vued back to the dream. I hadn't thought of it in the week since Noah's death, but the scene in my tiny kitchen had been part of that dream. I knew at some level the Noah was going to die.

In the last days of November, just three months after burying our son, I was pregnant again. Like many newly pregnant women I had lots of crazy dream. It was not new for me - I experienced crazy dreams with all my pregnancies. But as a babylost mom, the dreams seemed more macabre - which of course, given the dream in Noah's pregnancy, scared the crap out of me. The dreams escalated in intensity until one morning I had the loveliest/scariest dream about the baby I was carrying. She was a big happy healthy chubby dark-haired little girl who looked exactly like me. In the hospital I carried her on my back wrapped in a big native looking cloth - she was so big and strong. And then she smiled right at me with all her teeth - a big wide gap-toothed smile. I was so incredibly proud of her.

And then in the dream she started to wither away. I was showing her proudly to everyone, but I could tell she was slipping away and I knew it was because I wasn't feeding her. I tried to get her to nurse, but she refused. I tried to get the nurses to help me, but they were too busy. And so, in my dream, my big girl withered in my arms.

Interestingly I woke from that dream overjoyed that I was having a girl. I talked to my therapist (a rather wise hippie counselor) about it and asked if she thought I could be excited about it even though it ended badly. She said she thought the sad part was more about Noah than my new baby. And so I was happy about my baby girl (yes the baby is in reality a girl), but my worries about her "withering away" lingered.

As the days went by I had more and more dreams. One had me in the hospital again - asking for help and getting none - wanting to see my baby. They finally brought me my baby - one I was expecting to be dead - and then she opened her eyes and looked at me. I was confused and looked at the nurses and said - you brought me the wrong baby - this baby is alive but my baby is dead - he died yesterday.

The dreams continued like that until finally I had what could only be described as a nightmare. It was clearly about Noah this time. I was trying to bring him back to life - but he was dismembered and I couldn't do it - so I tried to bury him again - but I couldn't do that either - so he just laid there in pieces on the dirt.

I woke up in tears - sobs really - and stayed that way the entire day. I couldn't shake the dream. I decided I needed to go to the doctor to have my baby checked. Because so many of my dreams had been about seeking help from my primary doctor and not getting it, I decided to call an OB I had seen in the past instead. I explained my anxiety - just short of describing the dream - and was fit in with an NP who was very kind and reassuring. She did a quick ultrasound and the baby was still alive. I was happy, but not quite relieved. I asked her if they could run a progesterone test. She said there was really no need since the baby measured right on track and had a beating heart. But then she looked at me and I think she could tell I needed something more to be reassured and said - "well if it will help."

I was about eight weeks pregnant at this point. I had seen my regular doctor a week before because of a tiny bit of spotting. My progesterone was 21 which was low for me compared to my other viable pregnancies, but my doctor declared it "great". Now at eight weeks my progesterone came back at 9. I spiraled into panic. I was put on prometreum - 200mg per day. A few days later I had more spotting and cramping so the prometreum was doubled.
After that everything with my body - if not my mind - was calm. No more spotting or cramping. And although I remained a basket case during my waking hours for most of the pregnancy, the dreams never returned.

The pregnancy was not easy. There was much to give me pause even beyond the anxiety that seems to be part and parcel of a subsequent pregnancy after loss. Even after she was born things were not perfect. I've thought of the dream often - of my big healthy girl withering away - and wondered with each dip in the road "is this what it meant - am i going to lose her now?" In writing it all out though, I think it was about the progesterone - I think my body needed that little extra boost to keep her safe - and Noah was warning me.

Another funny thing about that dream: when Joninah was born, except for being a girl, she looked nothing like the baby of my dream - she was SKINNY! Now, at seven weeks she is that girl. Far from wasting with lack of breastmilk, she is an avid, sometimes ravenous, nurser with chubby cheeks, chubby legs, chubby everything! She is dark featured, and a quick look at her toothless gums seems to point toward a gap between her two front teeth - just like mommy, big sister, grandma, and great-grandma. Poor thing!

Two months in

2009-10-04T08:49:00.000-05:00

Joninah is a big, healthy, strong, gorgeous, baby girl - what more can I say?! I won't apologize for my vain, prideful, mother-biased crowing. She is the full, round, happy, dark-haired, dark-eyed, gap-toothed baby I dreamed of when she was just a group of primordial cells settling in to her first home. Dreams do come true sometimes I guess.

We call Joninah "Coconut". At first it was "Peanut" - not too original, but descriptively accurate. And then my milk came in. I swear we woke up to a different baby every morning. It seemed we were literally watching her grow before our eyes (and I do know the difference "literally" and "figuratively"). One morning, while marveling at our breastmilk-metamorphosed baby, my husband commented "you know honey she really isn't a peanut. She's more like a walnut." We tried "Walnut" out for a few days - but it just doesn't sound very warm and cuddly. So then Grace suggested Coconut. Well of course she is just like a sweet, round, fuzzy little coconut. And so she is.

And now she is asking for me - and I'll never post anything if I don't post in small chunks - so that's all for now.

Presenting the beautiful Joninah Louise!

2009-08-13T03:50:00.000-05:00

No Woman's Land

2009-07-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

I am 34 weeks tomorrow. Only a few weeks left! people keep telling me. Six long long terrifying weeks left - I can't help thinking. She could be born soon. She could die soon. I am being seen twice a week now for NSTs. Starting at 36 weeks I'll have a bio-physical profile instead of one of the NSTs. I have been seen just about weekly since the very beginning. She seems to be growing, her arrhythmia is a bad memory, her NSTs so far have been great - everything is fine - and yet I can't shake the feeling that she is going to die.

Noah's death was caused by a true knot. I really don't know for sure how long it took him to die, but I imagine it was minutes. Try as a might (and I really am trying) to find comfort in all this monitoring, I can't get past the thought that I could leave the clinic after a perfect visit, get in my car, and she could be dead before I pulled out of the parking lot.

One thing that is hard is that she just doesn't move very much. I listen to her heartbeat with my doppler and that will usually elicit a few jabs (she must really hate it), but often, too too often, she is quiet - and it makes me INSANE!

I'm in two worlds. One has a big box of beautifully clean and carefully folded newborn clothes waiting for her to wear, poop in, spit-up on and grow out of. The other world has a little ziploc bundle in my purse that contains the outfit I want her to be buried in. I keep it with me in case I don't get to go home before I deliver her as happened with Noah - I didn't get to pick out his burial clothes. Learning from experience I guess you could call it.

Will I still be sane when this is all over? Will I be of any use to anyone - to my Grace and Chet - if this baby dies? Will I know what to do if she lives?

Missing Noah

2009-04-26T19:40:00.000-05:00

All my posts are really about missing Noah I guess. Joninah is moving around more. The last couple of mornings I've felt her kicking even before her breakfast-banana boost. It reinforces my relationship with her to feel evidence of her life inside of me. It also reinforces what I lost with Noah.

Who would he have become? How can it be that I will never know? How can it be that he was alive inside of me and I can know nothing more about him than that? How can it be that most babies live, but Noah didn't? I think Joninah will live - that I will get to watch her become who she is. I think in a way her life may make Noah's loss more searing for me. She is so completely not her brother - this miraculously unexpected girl-baby. I won't be able to fool myself for a second that she is who I lost when Noah died. He is gone - permanently, irrevocably gone. Joninah is so wanted and cherished, but so is Noah.

trying again

2009-04-23T21:54:00.000-05:00

Noah was born still on August 30 and I had a positive pregnancy test in the first week of December. I got pregnant during my second full cycle. Part of trying again so quickly for me is that I am 40 and I was terrified about not being able to conceive again, as well as being frightened that if I did conceive that the baby might have chromosomal problems due to my "advanced maternal age". I kept imagining months going by and my last good eggs being flushed down the toilet. For me, I had to get pregnant as quickly as possible.

So now I am 24 weeks pregnant with an apparently healthy baby girl. Her nt/quad screen was excellent despite my age and her level two ultrasound looked great so we are fairly confident that she does not have any genetic problems.

That said, this pregnancy, except for burying our son, has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I cry daily for Noah. I cry almost daily for the safety of our daughter. I ask daily - "God do you know I can't bury another baby?" I ask Barry daily if he thinks God knows (he is a little tighter with God than I am). I beg almost every waking hour "please keep my baby safe."

It hasn't helped that there have been complications with this pregnancy that I did not experience with Grace, Chet, or Noah's. I had spotting and low/dropping progesterone from weeks 7-9 so I was placed on prometrium until week 14. Then about a month after that bullet was dodged, our daughter developed a seriously irregular heart beat. I literally spent the two days before we could see the maternal fetal specialist planning our baby's funeral. We were ultimately assured by two specialists that the arrhythmia is benign, but I struggle to take comfort in assurances. Even something as inconsequential as an anterior placenta feels like a curse to me because it makes it difficult for me to feel her move.

One of the only things I really know for sure is that, whatever the outcome, I can not put myself or my family through another pregnancy. At the same time I can not even begin to express how truly grateful I am to be here - to have life, potential, hope growing inside of me again. Like my experience of mothering our Noah, as crushingly painful as it is, I would not trade this time with our daughter for the world.

And then there is my Sybil-self. She says things prefaced with "when Joninah comes...." She buys clothes for her, designs her birth announcement, and plans her welcoming shower. She lets herself imagine the sweet moment of her birth and the tender release of nursing her for the first time. She dreams of spending Noah's first birthday picnicking at his grave site with this girl-baby nestled in her arms. Sybil-self is almost as innocent as First-pregnancy self was. After all, how could it possibly happen again....

When it comes to trying again - jump right in or wait awhile - in my opinion it doesn't matter. Babylost mothers never ever forget what it was like to have their child die inside of them. We have a rare and brutal knowledge. It is in our bones. That we have it in us to hope is a testament to our strength.

hey jealousy

2009-04-22T17:24:00.000-05:00

This is my response to a post about jealousy in my spals (subsequent pregnancy after loss) group.

My version of the jealousy issue revolves around high order multiples (Jon and Kate, Natalie Suleiman) or any pregnancy in which a family brings home healthy babies despite extreme odds against them. So why do they get to have all their babies and my one big healthy full-term little boy is in the cold ground because of something so ridiculously uncomplicated as a knot? Selfish yes, but it is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear these stories. I truly don't want anyone else to hurt, but I don't want to hurt either. Then I think - I hope they know how blessed they are. And then I think - most baby do live. Despite everything that can go wrong - most live.

Defining a purpose

2009-04-19T06:34:00.000-05:00

So I'm not sure what I want to do with this blog. I started it as an extension of this idea I had that has, perhaps, evolved into a compulsion.

Things were pretty crazy for our family when I was pregnant with Noah. I did everything I was suppose to for him while I was pregnant, but I'm not sure he was the center of my universe. Survival was. Not his - ours. I think I sort of figured the "pregnancy" would take care of itself. Then he died. Almost the minute we got things straightened out and I was ready for him, he died.

And so as I went through papers getting us settled into our new home, I collected little forgotten scraps to remind me of out time with him. Appointment cards, test result letters, a picture of me pregnant with him before I even knew it (the only picture of me during his pregnancy). I gathered and keep gathering these little bits as I come across them, and tuck them in a drawer. They help me feel like a mother to him.

So I didn't want to be caught rummaging through stuff one step away from the recycling bin if something happened to this baby. The pregnancy tests were carefully dated and tucked safely away. This unlike Noah's, which were tossed in a bag mingled with completed tests from six other pregnancies - too "precious"to be thrown away, but indistinguishable from each other now. Every appointment card was tucked in that same special drawer, along with dated ultrasound pictures and notes from family. Everything about this baby has been meticulously saved in the same drawer where I have collected my mementos of Noah.

As I joined online support groups I started collecting hard copies of my posts. I'm not a journal-er, although I do like to write. I thought the posts would be a good way remember what I was thinking about while pregnant with our girl without journal-ing. That quickly evolved into wanting Joninah to know what I was thinking about. Someday. I'm thinking of the whole collection as a gift to her after she delivers her first baby. Before might be a little too much.

Support groups are about supporting others as much as they are about being supported. That means biting your tongue (crossing your fingers, making a fist, sitting on your hands....) when you might otherwise want to say what is really on your mind. Still, having a theoretical audience to consider keeps me honest.

The other thing is, I think about things beyond what is going on inside my uterus - or those who once occupied it. Some days it feels like not many other things. But mostly there is quite a bit going on in this head. I haven't found a great place to let it all out. I guess I decided to create one.

I admit I am not a huge blog reader. I will shocked if anyone reads mine. To a large extent I am only imagining a blog will do for me what I want it to do. We shall see I suppose - we shall see.

a dream

2009-04-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

Our daughter Joninah is due in August, about two weeks before the first anniversary of her brother Noah's birth/death. In my dreams August 30th is a sun-shiny warm day and we spend it introducing our baby girl to her big brother. A picnic, a cake, flowers, balloons, gifts..... Older siblings blessed early with death knowledge, comfortable with this as Noah's place, grateful for the open tumbling space he shares with them. A warm wiggler, breast-milk stupor-ed, snuggled contentedly next to me - outside of me - and still with me - in her sling.......

I let myself have this dream.